Those who were there in that era between the two Chicago Bulls three-peats would remember where they were when something unexpected happened. Most were locked in on their televisions watching Game 5 of the NBA Finals. The Houston Rockets were playing in Madison Square Garden against the Knicks. Then just before the first half ended, the feed shifted to a slow speed car chase in California. NBA fans were annoyed that the game was interrupted but they also needed to see this chase to the end. Because the one LAPD was chasing was defamed NFL legend, OJ Simpson.

The only one who probably wanted to get back to business was Rockets coach, Rudy Tomjanovich. Robert Horry, who was playing with the Rockets then, recalls the moment they walked into the locker room and saw the Bronco chase on TV. Back then they were supposed to record Game 5 on the VCR. But staff played the chase on the locker room TV instead and the players stood around it and watched. “Rudy R. walks in like ‘turn that s**t off. Get your mind back in the game. We got to win this f**king game,‘” Horry narrated on his podcast, Big Shot Bob.

Can you blame him? The series was tied 2-2. At that moment the Knicks were in the lead by 45-36. However Rudy was not taken seriously. Horry recalled they weren’t watching the game. In the second half, most were paying attention to NBC Sports veteran Bob Costas’ feed on the phase from the sidelines.

Horry’s teammate and now TNT studio analyst, Kenny “The Jet” Smith, was also on the floor there when networks paused the game to air Simpson’s chase. Kenny revealed earlier this year that OJ was the theme of the huddle discussion too. Then the coach interrupted to ask what they were doing. When he was told OJ is on the run, Rudy glossed over it completely.

“‘What are you doing? We’re in the middle of the NBA Finals!’ He draws a play up, we start walking out,” Kenny recalled in a 2016 interview. But he added that Rudy briefly took him aside to ask if Simpson really was on the run.

Robert Horry’s ‘you-had-to-be-there’ moment

Horry remembers the 1994 finals very differently from a third person POV. Because the rest of the game was aired in a little box in the corner of the screen while the chase was on. They didn’t even tape Game 5 which could’ve been frustrating to the coach. He said the Rockets had to go back and watch Game 4 to strategize because Simpson’s episode took over Game 5.

Even Horry admits that the Bronco chase on the freeway occupied his attention. But he and his co-host theorized that was because everyone wanted to know how it would end.

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We know how it ended for the Rockets. The Knicks won Game 5 91-82. The Rockets beat the Knicks in Game 7 to clinch the title, the first of Horry’s seven. Yet the 1994 Rockets win was in the background of everyone’s memory relative to Simpson’s chase.